On Starting A 7-Figure Hair Products Line

Jordynn Wynn, Sharon Pak, Kevin Gould

•

Published: January 5th, 2021

save

Jordynn Wynn, Sharon Pak, Kevin Gould

Founder, INH Hair

Founders

Employees

INH Hair

inhhair.com

from West Hollywood, CA, USA

started

Founders

Employees

Discover what tools Jordynn recommends to grow your business!

social media tool-icon

Instagram

Discover what books Jordynn recommends to grow your business!

Want more updates on INH Hair? Check out these stories:

Jordynn Wynn, the Co-Founder of Insert Name Here Hair, is a visionary entrepreneur whose expertise in brand-building and influencer marketing has turned a niche idea into a multi-million dollar business. Jordynn’s career began at ColourPop Cosmetics, where she helped concept and launch the brand, led collaborations with big names such as Disney and Sailor Moon, and rose from intern to Marketing Director.

In 2018, Jordynn and ColourPop colleague Sharon Pak joined forces to found Insert Name Here Hair, a brand that has revolutionized the way Millennials and Generation Z interact with hair extensions, accessories, and self-expression.

on-starting-a-high-quality-hair-products-line

What's your backstory and how did you get into entrepreneurship?

I was the first employee at ColourPop Cosmetics. I started 2 years before the brand launched and helped concept and launch the brand. While there I grew from Marketing Intern to Marketing Director.

One of my main focuses was leading the build-out of the influencer and collaboration program with partners such as Becky G, Disney, Hello Kitty, and Sailor Moon to name a few. While there I learned I really loved building brands and wanted to have my own one day. That “one day” came a lot sooner than I would have ever thought when my now co-founder Kevin Gould slid into my DM’s and asked to meet up with myself and former ColourPop colleague Sharon Pak. The three of us met up for dinner and he asked us if we could launch anything what would it be?

You need team members who have a “whatever it takes” mentality who are wanting to learn and grow.

Sharon and I had been brainstorming concepts for years and had recognized that there was a big white space in the hair market for high quality, accessible hair pieces.

Take us through your entrepreneurial journey. How did you go from day 1 to today?

At heart, I have always been entrepreneurial. At Pepperdine, I had everything from a cheese board company to a recruiting company, and in between classes I ran “braid bars” for local families I nannied for. Growing up, I struggled, as most young women do, with self-image. I learned to channel this into experimentation with hair and beauty, and it became a tool for me to express myself and better my self-perception in a healthy, happy way. I felt like I had discovered something precious, and I wanted to help other people access it.

One of the main problems we saw when researching the hair space, was the extreme variation in quality and price point. It was very difficult to find high-quality pieces at accessible price points. A lot of wigs and ponytails are hundreds, in some cases thousands, of dollars. On the other end of the spectrum, the affordable pieces were very low quality. They were made of plastic, smelled terrible, and you could not style them. One wig we purchased for research purposes was modeled after the Kim Kardashian silver hair with dark roots and the roots were literally drawn on with a marker.

Based on our market research we knew people wanted to experiment with wigs/extensions but didn’t feel confident in the quality or reliability of the available brands.

For our synthetic pieces, we work only with high-end, special fibers that, though a bit more expensive, are the closest thing to natural hair. They are extremely soft, lightweight, and can be heat styled up to 400 degrees.

For our Remy Human Hair pieces, quality again was a major factor. There is a lot that goes into getting the right hair. Many hair companies actually include animal hair or synthetic fibers in the extensions that they claim are 100% Human Hair. Seemingly small factors, such as the direction of the hair follicles, make a huge difference in the quality and longevity of your human hair pieces.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

We are doing great currently. We just recently launched into a few new categories including hot tools and have some exciting new categories coming up this holiday.

Over the next year, one of our main focuses going forward will be increasing brand awareness, community growth, and building out an amazing customer experience and journey for our new and returning users.

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

We learned very early on that pairing influencer marketing with performance marketing fosters a significant degree of credibility. Even if customers do not immediately buy your product when they first see it on their favorite influencer, it’s all about building brand awareness and eventually converting those viewers to sales later down the road. An example of this that we love is when Carli Bybel’s mom saw INH ads, then subsequently heard Carli’s friends talk about INH buns. She is now on her third bun and has converted three friends! Consumers are so much more likely to purchase when they are served an ad by a brand they have heard of before from a reliable source.

When we first launched INH, we predicted that our wigs would be our number one product, so we purchased a hefty initial order. However once they launched, wigs turned out to be our lowest sellers in comparison to other SKU's. Our first wigs in particular were extremely slow. It took us over a year to sell through our first set but we are happy to say that we have learned a ton about our customers since then and now our new launches often sell out within 48 hours! From this experience, we learned that it is better to start small. Always try to learn and optimize. It’s okay to sell out and restock later. If you are launching a brand with a limited budget, it’s more important that you have the funds to later purchase items that definitively ARE selling. The financial capacity to react to trends and sales is much more important than starting with tons of products.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting?

It all starts with the team.

Think long and hard about partners, team members. You need team members who have a “whatever it takes” mentality who are wanting to learn and grow. Plus amazing communicators and team players.

What's your backstory and how did you get into entrepreneurship?

Take us through your entrepreneurial journey. How did you go from day 1 to today?

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting?

Where can we go to learn more?